Saturday, October 1, 2016

Interactive Spelling and Fun Friday Behavioral Program

    Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Cute library pockets I found on Amazon.

I was a little hesitant to start the new spelling curriculum I purchased from Jen Bengel at TPT (just because it was different than what I am used to), but it was a huge success!  The students help come up with the words each week (that go with the lesson taught) and then they choose their own lists. This was a major success!  My student are at very different levels and this lets them choose their words off our class list we came up with together. They had fun copying their lists onto paint sample strips that I picked up at the local hardware store. They had fun  choosing the color and Sharpie to brighten up their list. They ended up with a list to take home and a list to keep at school. They keep their classroom list in a cute library pocket. Every day there are different activities they use the personal word list for.  

Student copies personal word list onto a paint sample strip.

My students always want to sit in the teacher's chair which is not allowed. This year on their birthday they get to sit in the special chair. The young man who got to sit in the Birthday Chair Tuesday was grinning from ear to ear. He happens to have me three periods a day so it really did brighten up his special day. I had some streamers hanging off of the back you can't see in the picture. 

This is a simple but fun reading activity. Number some sentences one through six ( a few for each number) and the student rolls a die. They get to read a sentence based on the number of the die.  When they can read the sentence perfect with no help, they get to check off the sentence. 

This year I have some students with behavioral problems (more than usual). I came up with a behavior incentive program where they work for free time on Fridays. Part of the free time involves crafts or painting (depending on what I set up for the day). Most students have me several periods a day. IPADS and computer games are available certain periods of the day. This way they can have free time but not sit in front of a device several hours a day if they earned free time in all of their classes with me. 15 minutes of reading fun time is always listening to me read to them while they eat popcorn. They enjoy this as much as the crafts and IPADS! 

Fun Friday behavioral incentive table. This week it was set up for painting.  Did I mention Fun Friday not only has improved my behavior problems-it gives me time to put in grades and work on special education paperwork while keeping an eye on their activities? I never seem to have any behavior incidents during this time.  And everyone works hard all week to get their time. Usually each period someone is sitting with their head down (based on penalties from the week) but this is getting less and less I am noticing so it really is working! They get minus five minutes per check. I do erase checks and add checks throughout the week for improved behaviors so they have an incentive to be really good again if they are a kid who always seems to get in trouble.  An important part of this is that nobody ever gets a minute of "FREE TIME" Monday-Thursday. If they finish their classwork they work on "earlier finisher" task cards or read their AR books.  

I just love fun tape and Sharpies! Have a Great Week!